


People Who Know My Sins

by atrata



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-06-24
Updated: 2008-06-24
Packaged: 2017-10-08 05:41:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/73284
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/atrata/pseuds/atrata
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dancing is not in her job description, but neither is mopping up blood at 4 in the morning. She does it anyway.</p>
            </blockquote>





	People Who Know My Sins

"Dance with me."

"Oh, no, I'm--" But he grabs her hand and pulls her close and Pepper goes along with it.

It's fine, really. His hands don't wander and there's a completely appropriate amount of space between them, but there's something in the way he looks at her that Pepper doesn't like. Or likes too much. Or something.

"We should do this more often," he says. "All the time. We'll have a morning dance routine."

"That sounds... awful, actually. Too much like Jazzercise."

"You weren't into Jazzercise? You're killing me, Potts. I've got this great mental image of you in pink legwarmers. You're doing this thing with your--"

"Okay," she says, laughing. "Okay, that's enough."

"Evening dance routine, then." And then his hand does wander, just a quarter-inch, but Pepper feels it all the same.

"You want to dance in the living room?"

"Sure, why not? Jarvis can walk us through new dances. We'll tango. Foxtrot." He does a quick three-step. "Cha-cha-cha."

She leans back in his arms and looks at him, trying to figure out exactly how serious he is. He's smiling, eyes shining, all teasing. Not too serious, then. Good. "You've been watching Dirty Dancing again, haven't you? It's not going to happen."

He pouts dramatically. "Nobody puts Tony in a corner."

The next night, as she's leaving, Jarvis is pumping a D'Arienzo tango through the speakers, and she finds a single red rose on the seat of her car.

 

***

"Ow! Fuck, Pepper, I don't think my arm is supposed to bend like--OW!"

Tony howls as Pepper yanks the armor off his left arm. He was apparently shot out of the air by a surface-to-air missile, and then a building fell on top of him. Pepper doesn't even have words for this level of terrifying idiocy. The suit is crushed, so shattered she doesn't even need to cut him out of it; the lining underneath is shredded and bloody, adhered to his skin. His ribs are cracked and his shoulder is dislocated and there's blood, so much blood. If he moves too much, he's going to puncture a lung on one of the broken ribs, and as she listens to Jarvis catalog his injuries, Pepper is overcome with the urge to finish the job and kill him herself.

"Be quiet," she says. "Just stop talking."

"But it-- OW! Okay, fuck, okay. Can I at least have a drink?"

"Good idea," she says. "Blood thinners when you're in need of 547 stitches." She prods at his injured shoulder and then, with no warning whatsoever, slams it back into place. He screams, wounded and wrecked, and then throws his head back and laughs maniacally.

"Wow, okay," he says, rolling his shoulder experimentally when the laughter subsides. "That's better. Where'd you pick that up? Are you secretly-- ow!" He yelps as she wipes too much antiseptic over a gash just below his collarbone. "God, never mind, you're clearly not secretly a doctor. I'm pretty sure even secret doctors get training in how not to-- _fuck_, Pepper, seriously." She has more or less just punched him with the gauze.

"No, I am not a secret doctor," she says, leaning into him. She's basically in his lap, kneeling over him, pressing him into the couch, both hands working to staunch the bleeding. It's overkill. It's hurting his back, putting too much pressure on his bruised spine. "I am not a secret anything. I am _your_ personal assistant, and apparently that means mopping up your blood at 4 in the morning even though you can afford to buy an entire hospital. Now, stop moving. You'll puncture a lung."

"Bet you'd like that," he mutters, not looking at her. "Then you'd be rid of me. Always trying to get rid of me."

"Shut up, Tony." That's as much as she should say, but she's angry and exhausted and her mouth just keeps moving. "If I wanted to get rid of you, believe me, you'd be gone."

"Nah, I could take you," he says, and she leans into his chest until he groans. "Okay, okay, you're a formidable foe, I was totally wrong. I couldn't take you. Please don't kill me." His voice is weak, rough.

"Stop tempting me," she says. He looks at her for a second, his eyes like black holes, red-rimmed with pain and exhaustion, drawing her in. Her breath hitches and then he just melts into the couch, dropping his head back with a sigh. She watches the long line of his throat as he swallows, watches his chest as he tries to breathe, listens to his lungs rattle, stares at the soft but thankfully steady glow of the reactor. He brings his right hand up to rest lightly on the crease of her hip, his thumb brushing the ridge of her pelvic bone, moving in small circles. She realizes she's straddling his thigh and looks up, a little startled, but his eyes are closed, eyelashes unmoving against his grime-streaked face.

She is suddenly and shockingly overwhelmed by his smell, sweat and blood and fire curling through her lungs, and her breathing abruptly shallows to match his. She shakes her head a little, trying to clear it, trying to focus on something other than the sheer force and physicality of his presence.

"You're angrier every time I come back," he says.

"You're more hurt every time you come back," she tells him, and eases up on his chest. The blood's soaked through the gauze pad, and she grabs another, tapes it down, starts peeling strips of spandex from his skin. He desperately needs a shower, needs to clear out the dirt and shrapnel and sweat so she can see where the blood is coming from. There are lines, though, and showering with Tony is definitely on the other side of one of them. So she grabs a clean cloth, dunks it in the tub of warm water on the floor, and starts washing him off.

Pepper doesn't work well with silence; she's not used to it. She's used to Tony's chatter or his too-loud music or CNN. She's used to being the eye of the storm that is Tony Stark's life, and in moments like this, when the storm has passed and all she can see is the unending, grueling aftermath, she doesn't like it. It feels like her skin is on backwards. Here, now, it's just the soft slosh of the water and Tony's quiet gasps of pain, and she can feel the tension building between her shoulderblades. Her touch grows less gentle, and finally he says, "It's not like I'm trying, you know. I don't do it on purpose."

She feels her lips thin. "You don't _not_ try, either. You're reckless, Tony." His chest is mostly clean, now, and she's got gauze in one hand and Dermabond in the other, and when did this become her life? His thumb hasn't stopped moving, presses into the hollow of her hipbone.

"I'm not."

"Why isn't there stealth shielding on the suit?" She glues shut a small cut on his left pectoral, and then another below the arc reactor, a little to the right.

"Why are you wearing my clothes?" His thumb crawls under the too-large t-shirt, finds skin, sends heat up her spine. "I know my sweats are comfy, but--"

"Don't distract me," she says, and regrets it immediately. He opens one eye and lifts his head just a little, just enough to make the tendons in his neck stand out.

"I'm distracting?"

"You're changing the subject," she says. "If you'd added stealth capabilities to the suit last time I asked you about it, you wouldn't have been hit by a missile. A _missile_. God, Tony."

"And then you wouldn't be in my lap. Seems like a fair trade to me."

"Don't. Don't do this. It's not funny."

"I'm not laughing," he says, and he's not, and this is bad. This is very, very bad.

Time passes, maybe, and then Pepper gives in and slowly lowers her head until her forehead meets his collarbone. She breathes in the scent of him, of antiseptic ointment and sweat and burnt metal and blood. Inhales once, twice. His hand tightens on her hip. She inhales again. Straightens. "Put your head back down," she says, and he does, and she returns to the work of putting him back together.

 

***

"You moved in, didn't you? You're living in my house."

Pepper looks at Tony over the rim of her coffee cup, takes in the state of his hair and the stains on his t-shirt and the shade of the bags under his eyes, estimates he hasn't slept in 36 hours. "Two weeks ago," she says. "Some genius you are."

He grabs one of the chairs, spins it around, and straddles it. "Jarvis, you are a traitor. You're supposed to tell me when people move into my house."

"Must have been a programming glitch, sir," Jarvis says. "I'll be sure to inform you next time."

Pepper smirks into her coffee cup, but when she looks at Tony, he's not smiling. He's just staring, arms crossed over the back of the chair. Pepper's throat feels suddenly thick, but she just raises her eyebrows and waits for Tony to say something else. He doesn't. He keeps staring, and then eventually gets up and pours Frangelico into his coffee. He turns, leans against the counter, stares some more.

"Wow," Pepper says, nervous. "You're quiet. I should have moved in a long time ago. I would have, if I'd--"

"I don't need a babysitter," he says, his voice hard.

Pepper disagrees, but has the sense not to do it out loud. He's angry, and he's tired, and he's probably drunk at 8 in the morning. "No." She is careful to keep her voice calm and level, and the fact that she has to do it makes her a little angry, too. "Nor do you need media reports about your PA making 4 a.m. house calls. Nor do you need to wait for me to get here when you _do_ need a 4 a.m. house call."

He takes a sip of his coffee. "It was fine before," he says, and Pepper loses it. She puts her cup down, hard; coffee sloshes over the sides.

"It was fine for _you_," she snaps. "It was not fine for _me_, getting texts from Jarvis while I was in _your_ meetings, trying to run _your_ company, while you were flying around getting shot by _missiles_ and rushing back here to wait and worry and wonder if you were even coming back and I never had clothes and I didn't know and I couldn't keep doing it, Tony, I'm sorry, I couldn't."

She stops talking and looks away from him, stares at the table, her chest heaving, blood roaring through her ears. She refuses to cry. She is dimly aware of movement, and then he's next to her chair, crouching, trying to catch her eye. She takes a deep breath, but she's pretty sure she can't look at him yet. She watches his hand move, reach out, pull back without touching her.

"Hey," he says softly, leaning a little further, forcing himself into her space and into her field of vision. "Pepper, come on, I'm sorry. I didn't know."

"Because you didn't think," she says quietly.

"You're right, but I'll start. I'm a genius, remember? I know how to think."

She shakes her head. She knows how this goes. His resolve will last for three hours and 37 minutes.

"Don't be mad, Pepper, please."

"I'm not mad." It's more complicated than that, but she doesn't even have words to explain to herself, let alone to him.

"Okay. Good." His tone is decisive, and he stands up. "Dance with me," he says, holding out a hand.

Pepper takes it, and holds on tight.

**Fin.**

**Author's Note:**

> Written to three titles from [McSweeney's list of lists](http://www.mcsweeneys.net/links/lists/). I had them as section headings, but [](http://murklins.livejournal.com/profile)[**murklins**](http://murklins.livejournal.com/) talked me out of it. If you're curious, though, I used one for the title, and the other two were, "other things the road to hell is paved with," and "jobs that have salaries arguably incommensurate with the work they entail." Thanks (as usual) to [](http://murklins.livejournal.com/profile)[**murklins**](http://murklins.livejournal.com/), and to [](http://dafnap.livejournal.com/profile)[**dafnap**](http://dafnap.livejournal.com/) and [](http://obsession-inc.livejournal.com/profile)[**obsession_inc**](http://obsession-inc.livejournal.com/) for miscellaneous handholding at various points of the process. Also, I totally swiped [](http://murklins.livejournal.com/profile)[**murklins**](http://murklins.livejournal.com/)' summary, because I cannot write a summary to save my life.


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